Daily Bulletin

Jennifer Le Patourel, four, of Kitchener, gets some help from her mother, Charmaine, in celebrating her new country at the July 1 festivities at UW. A South African flag on one cheek is a nod to her country of origin. Sunny skies brought record crowds out for the Canada Day festivities and fireworks on the North Campus.

Shads are here to change their futures

Shad Valley is an award-winning summer program for outstanding senior high school students. It integrates hands-on adventures in leadership, science and technology with entrepreneurial projects and co-op work experience. Shad Valley programs take place at 10 university campuses this year (nine in Canada and one in Scotland). The results? Motivation, innovation and "the experience of a lifetime!" says Linda Carson, in charge of Shad publicity at UW this summer.

Planned activities include guest speakers -- among them Larry Smith of UW's economics department (a big hit at previous Shad sessions as he talked about nationalism and the brain drain), Carolyn MacGregor of systems design engineering, and Gord Stubley of mechanical engineering. Another highlight is an "Enlightened Skepticism" session in which Shads swap urban myths, spot on-line hoaxes, lie with statistics, and analyze media by comparing news coverage in their different local papers. Then there will be intensive small-group workshops, on topics as varied as robotics and oxygen levels in a local river.

Says Carson: "The central focus of Shad Valley is a major design project, which peaks on Friday afternoon, July 21. At this event, four teams make business-like presentations of their inventions and demonstrate working prototypes. Late in the afternoon, external reviewers will judge the outstanding presentations. If you miss that, come back for our Open House, Friday afternoon, July 27, and check out the displays prepared by the Shads to commemorate the month's activities!"

Spare-time activities range from Latin dancing to drama. The month started with a get-your-bearings scavenger hunt on campus yesterday.

Shad Valley aims to develop "innovative leaders", and organizers say it succeeds. "Our students are stars: 85 percent of Shads study the sciences and engineering with 50 percent pursuing post-graduate studies. At Shad Valley, we instill participants with confidence and a strong desire to reach for challenges to make a difference."

New department heads take over

• David Fuller, chair of the department of management sciences (for one year only)
• Gerald Schneider, chair of the department of mechanical engineering
• Jill Tomasson-Goodwin, chair of the department of drama and speech communication
• John Wainwright, chair of the department of applied mathematics
• Susan Shaw, associate dean (graduate studies and research) in the faculty of applied health sciences
• Philip Merikle, chair of the department of psychology

Web site offers student news

The site started carrying news early this year, was officially launched May 1, crashed for a while in mid-June, but now is back in operation to stay, says Ryan Chen-Wing, whose previous career has been as an engineering student, Engineering Society executive, UW student senator and man-about-campus. He and fellow-student Rob Schmidt, along with several colleagues, created the site and are keeping the news up to date.

Besides news stories, the UWStudent.org home page has some essential web links for students, and various opportunities for students to submit news stories, comment on existing stories and post general messages. "What we are creating," says Chen-Wing, "isn't just a website but an organization that will strengthen our community. Our work will allow students to experience the events of campus when they are worlds away on work term and become more aware of the UW community, and will contribute to the educational experience of students."

The UWStudent.org organizers say that while many news sites -- including the Daily Bulletin -- are pretty much newspapers that happen to be available on-line, they intend their site to be very interactive, include updated content as often as there's news, and add new technology as it comes along. Several of the people involved have experience on the student newspaper, Imprint, but the two media are different enough that "we are not direct competitors," Chen-Wing says.

"Some of us have paid small amounts of money to cover incidental expenses, but thus far we have no significant expenses, as our web hosting is free of charge," he says. "We will find support financially through sponsorships and advertising." The site has been hosted on an American server, he said, but "soon we will likely move it to a server in Canada to which we have greater access. Later we expect we will move it to our own server, when our wills decide and finances allow."

UWStudent.org was officially incorporated a few days ago, and the plan is to turn it into a non-profit organization of which all UW students will be members, Chen-Wing said. But he insists students won't have to pay any fees for it.

"Over the summer we are advancing our operations for a full launch in September," he said. "We encourage everybody who is interested to submit information, contribute their ideas and enthusiasm. We especially require help in technical development of our website."

The talk of the campus

And brick work will be starting today at the Humanities building, says Peter Fulcher of the plant operations department. Work is planned on the north side of the building, on the stairs by the large artwork. "These stairs lead to the second and third floors and the internal courtyard. Please use caution in this area."

"If you are an undergraduate student expecting to graduate at the fall 2000 convocation ceremonies," says a note from the registrar's office, "please ensure that you submit a Notice to the Registrar of Intention to Graduate form by August 1. This form is available in the Registrar's Office and in your department office -- a printable version of this form is also available on the web." Fall convocation will be held Saturday, October 21, with ceremonies in the morning for applied health sciences and arts, in the afternoon for the other faculties.

Also from the registrar's office, word is that fall term schedules for undergraduates will be going into the mail the week of July 31. Fee statements will be mailed in separate envelopes, by UW's finance office, about the same time.

The staff association office will be closed from today through July 17. Says a memo from office manager Barb Yantha: "To purchase discount tickets during that time, please contact either Teri McCartney, ext. 2600, or Kelly Wilker-Draves, ext. 2796. For other staff association business, Edward Chrzanowski, ext. 6487, will be available after July 5."

"We have something new that is unique on the web," says a note from Elliott Avedon, who may be retired as a UW recreation professor but who's still keenly involved in the online presence of the university's museum and archive of games. The new item is Pieter Breughel's 16th century painting "Young Folk at Play". Says Avedon: "We have copies of the painting in the Museum and lots of Archival information about the subjects in the painting. We have now placed an Image Map of the painting on the Web. A viewer can click on a section of the painting and see a detail of that section with a description of the game being played. There are 200 children in the painting involved in some 80 activities. So far we've produced information on the Web for over 20 games. There are lots of Websites with graphics of Brueghel's works -- but this is the first of this painting and with clickable details."

The UW Choir will present "The Joy of Singing!" at 12 noon tomorrow in the great hall of the Davis Centre. A flyer promises "music from baroque to Broadway". Admission is free.

Finally . . . as of today, I'll be away from campus for a few days of vacation. For the next week or so, information for the Daily Bulletin can be sent to my colleague Barbara Hallett (bhallett@uwaterloo.ca), and the Bulletin will appear at the usual time each day in the usual ways.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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